July 1, 2024
Best-selling Harrison (Black Sheep) is back with a vampire tale. Sloane is dreading her birthday and feeling indifferent about her life but goes on a surprise birthday weekend getaway with her best friend, Naomi, expecting wine tastings and relaxation. Instead, Naomi plans a wild night out with some mysterious strangers, which takes a horrifying turn with eternal consequences. Prepub Alert.
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July 22, 2024
The addictive latest from Harrison (Black Sheep) is by turns gory, rage-inducing, eerie, melancholy, and hopeful. For Sloane Parker’s 36th birthday, she heads out for a long weekend of celebration at a swanky resort in the Finger Lakes with her best friend, Naomi, hoping for a distraction from her husband’s infidelity and her anxiety about aging. But when risk-taker Naomi drags risk-averse Sloane to a house party with strangers they met in a bar, the night takes a sharp turn. The party turns out to be a vampiric orgy and to survive the night Sloane and Naomi must agree to transform into vampires themselves. It’s an unusual perspective from which to approach the vampire novel: that of a woman unhappy about aging being instead forced to live forever. There are some familiar elements—including the introduction of a brooding, moody male vampire love interest who regards Sloane as a captivating enigma; the question of animal blood as a more humane alternative to killing people; and the excruciating pain of transformation—but there’s also enough that feels fresh to render this a distinctive treatise on the transformational power of friendship, as Sloane and Naomi embark on this literally never-ending journey together. The result is a smart, scary, and occasionally sexy page-turner.
Starred review from August 1, 2024
Harrison (Such Sharp Teeth, 2022) is back with another feminist take on the horror genre. Sloane and Naomi have been best friends since college, the type of friends who don't always need to speak to communicate because they just know. The bond between them is welcoming and relatable, and their pop culture references will make readers very happy. Sloane's birthday is coming up, and her husband planned a trip for the two friends at the Finger Lakes. Naomi, a free-spirited rock star's girlfriend, is encouraging Sloane to have some fun, but Sloane is reluctant until she finds out her husband is cheating again. Once this information is uncovered, the two women end up at a wild house party during which the friends are turned into vampires. Their former comfortable, loving friendship is flipped inside out by their radical change, placed under the pressure of a newfound thirst for blood and the need for huge, murderous decisions. Although not all friends change into vampires, everyone changes, as do friendship dynamics. Sloane and Naomi will have to learn how to navigate their new lives to continue to be there for each other. There's much to love in Harrison's tale.
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